a sabattical in darkness

Inside the gated microcosm,
the street-lights are abundant
and ultra-bright like snarling demon sentinels,
or spike-toothed angels,
depending on perspective and circumstance,

but as neither
the nighttime nor its denizens
are purely and consistently evil
(but rather some
nocturnal souls
simply dwell where energy is still,)

it seems barbarous
(like building a Frostian wall,)
to so fearfully split
evening's relieving serenity so
that the eyes
must grasp and grope
for a single star in the sky
as spot-lighted feet
stroll
from screaming post to post,

but thankfully my eyes adjust,
and the exit to true night
is but half-a-mile
and reached:
I can feel myself
revive and smile,
as I leave behind
those hot, towering demons
to snarl and glare:
ever erect, pointing,
and thrusting their
fiery, self-pious lanterns
at empty indifferent air,
as undeterred I
(picturing the Buddha's deer park)
continue serenely:

stepping and
stepping,
dodging,
stepping:
savouring
the sapphically clustered starlight
and the serene absence
of the monstrous motor roaring
pervasive and perpetual
to Apollo's hours
in my primitive time and place,
(at least near any town, farm,
or human arm)

Though here at least
the night
is largely safe, empty and still:
a smoothly lit thought-aquarium
in which a soul
can stroll and swim weightless
from street to street
and meme to meme to dream...
and with odds
encounter neither business nor bother,
nothing darkly disturbing
nor shining, beautiful and insincere,

nothing at all in front
of semi-thriving painted promenades,
nothing but bushes,
room for stretching and meditation
freedom from itching, prying eyes:
freedom
to walk at one's own pace,
to lumber like a bear
or sing without care...

disturbing no-one:
knowing already
the teeming world and all
its vast politics, pathos, and business
to be but
a paint-crowned sunflower,
an absinthe vision of Van Gogh,
a great and lovely work
already known,

now but
distant flute accompaniment
to the melodic Mozartian wail
overheard between the moon
and a distant feathered cousin
of that same nightingale
which enthralled
the young and eminent, worldly
world-weathered Keats
in his hour of illness and need,
leading the low-lit way
for a few feral hours
to lose all the world,
along with
the manic-machine song
of its wrecking fire reed:

'far from the madding crowd,'
a pipe
and quiet moonlight
is all a soul could need